Nostalgia, Music & The Moments We're Chasing

Tim · 0:02
All right, Reggie, what was your favorite part of this episode?

Reggie · 0:04
My favorite part was appreciating that I was sitting amongst other musicians, and I felt, I felt heard.

Alyssa · 0:10
Will?

Will · 0:13
I liked hearing about Tim's Bieber fever.

Tim · 0:15
Oh my gosh.

Juan · 0:17
My favorite part of the episode was actually off camera when I opened up this thing we threw on the ground and actually found out that it was a prompt. We thought it was a piece of trash. But it was actually Man vs. Gorilla.

Tim · 0:31
Alyssa, what was your favorite part?

Alyssa · 0:33
I think my favorite part was hearing everyone's memories from years past. It was fun.

Reggie · 0:38
Love that. Yeah. What was your favorite part, Tim?

Tim · 0:41
My favorite moment was just remembering my big CD case. CDs! I mean, there's just so many good memories in this episode. That was my favorite part. Welcome to AGE. This is a podcast where we talk about something random for a long time. And today we have 2 guests that have joined us last minute, and we're so freaking thrilled to have them on the show.

Reggie · 1:19
So thrilled.

Tim · 1:20
Juan, musician.

Alyssa · 1:21
Hi.

Tim · 1:22
Actually, introduce your own name.

Juan · 1:24
Juan Holladay.

Tim · 1:25
My wife told me that if each person introduces themselves, we get a sense of their voice if you're not watching.

Reggie · 1:29
Oh, I like that.

Tim · 1:30
This is Juan.

Juan · 1:31
Juan Holladay.

Tim · 1:32
Welcome.

Reggie · 1:33
I'm Reggie Tidwell. You all know me.

Alyssa · 1:35
I'm Alyssa Downey.

Tim · 1:36
Alyssa Downey and Juan are our new guests today, and it is feeling good. So we're going to pick the theme out of the trash can because Juan's got to get out of here as soon as we're done.

Reggie · 1:48
He's got to skirt on out of here.

Tim · 1:51
Skirt on out of here. We're not going to dilly-dally with our chatting like we normally do. Hey, is there actually trash in here? I think there is.

Reggie · 2:00
Is there trash?

Tim · 2:02
Unless that was a topic, then I just threw it away.

Reggie · 2:05
Yeah, no, I think all the topics are in the white paper.

Tim · 2:08
Okay.

Reggie · 2:09
Oh man, here it goes. Heart's beating. My heart's beating.

Tim · 2:13
Oh, nostalgia.

Reggie · 2:16
Oh, oh, that's a good one.

Juan · 2:17
Easy.

Reggie · 2:18
Oh, I love nostalgia. That's a fun one, actually.

Tim · 2:21
Nostalgia.

Reggie · 2:23
I like it.

Tim · 2:24
This is good.

Reggie · 2:24
First thing I go, yeah, what do you got?

Tim · 2:27
Yeah, yeah. The way we kind of talk about these subjects is just like an immediate response. When you hear nostalgia, what do you think about?

Juan · 2:32
I said easy.

Tim · 2:33
Easy. Yeah, easy.

Juan · 2:35
It was like, I think nostalgia is— it's like what everyone wants. I mean, it's what everyone wants right now, I think. Or at least I get that sense that like we are nostalgic for past—

Reggie · 2:48
He's got a red light on.

Tim · 2:54
Done.

Juan · 2:54
We are nostalgic for past times that were not as stressful in general.

Tim · 3:01
Yeah.

Juan · 3:01
You know what I mean? Like, like I watched The Matrix last night and—

Tim · 3:04
Someone just told me they didn't see The Matrix. Is that you?

Juan · 3:07
So super weird.

Tim · 3:08
Yeah.

Juan · 3:09
To not have seen The Matrix.

Tim · 3:11
There are people that haven't seen The Matrix.

Juan · 3:12
But it is more and more common.

Reggie · 3:14
Years ago.

Juan · 3:15
I know.

Reggie · 3:15
So long ago.

Juan · 3:16
But the one of the things about The Matrix is that the The, the, like the Matrix, the, the computers, the robots, they created a fake world for humans that loops basically like the late '90s, 1999, over and over and over again.

Tim · 3:31
That's a spoiler alert.

Alyssa · 3:32
I'm just kidding.

Tim · 3:33
That is. Yeah.

Juan · 3:34
Well, too late.

Reggie · 3:35
Yeah.

Juan · 3:36
Too late.

Reggie · 3:36
But it's like, if you haven't watched it by now— Will's gonna put spoiler alert up on—

Juan · 3:39
That's— I'll give you that one. Yeah. The rest—

Reggie · 3:42
I mean, if you haven't watched The Matrix by now, I mean, it's been spoiled over and over again.

Tim · 3:46
Yeah. It's kind of been a theme in our culture. But yeah, I—

Juan · 3:49
Like the late '90s was like, in the Matrix that's considered the peak of human, and I think it's the peak of human existence as well, at least like liberal Western democracy, because it's like the moment before 9/11.

Tim · 4:01
Yeah.

Reggie · 4:01
Yeah.

Juan · 4:02
Yeah, you got the end of Bill Clinton, right before George Bush.

Reggie · 4:05
Yep.

Juan · 4:06
It was the peak of like what we can, I feel like it's the peak of Western liberal democracies.

Reggie · 4:11
We peaked in high school. Yeah.

Juan · 4:13
So the whole world peaked in high school.

Tim · 4:14
I mean, we were in high school and it was a very, open, imaginative possibilities. It just felt—

Juan · 4:22
Yeah, the ozone layer was healing.

Tim · 4:24
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Juan · 4:26
In the '80s, it was like the ozone layer, and then the '90s was like, oh, it's healing, we're fixing it, like through regulations and stuff. Like, it's— the system's working, you know, recycling.

Tim · 4:35
Like, you know, I just told my wife, I was like, the '90s were such a happy time because we didn't know anything was wrong.

Reggie · 4:40
That's right.

Tim · 4:40
You know, like, I don't know if it was happy in the sense of like everyone was happy, but there was just like this Like grunge was ruining like hair metal, ruining in a good way.

Juan · 4:50
Satisfying.

Tim · 4:50
Music was coming alive, like bands were coming out of the woodwork and culture was—

Juan · 4:55
Garage bands.

Tim · 4:56
Yeah, garage bands.

Reggie · 4:57
It's funny you say music because when I think of nostalgia, I think of music. I think music is always my direct tie to nostalgia. I can listen to a song from a certain amount of certain time in my life, something I listened to in high school, something I listened to in college, and it takes me right back there, and I feel that nostalgia. I'm like, wow, this was a whole epic era, right? And it's funny because all of us on here are kind of musicians. Alyssa has been a phenomenal designer for a lot of music bands back. That's how she kind of started her career, working for which, which label was it? Virgin?

Alyssa · 5:38
Atlantic.

Reggie · 5:39
Atlantic.

Alyssa · 5:39
Just an intern though.

Reggie · 5:40
Yeah, still.

Juan · 5:41
Just an intern at Atlantic.

Reggie · 5:43
Still being an intern at Atlantic. It's still really cool.

Alyssa · 5:45
That's really freaking cool.

Reggie · 5:47
And Juan's musician Tim used to be the frontman, as you guys probably already know, for Enemy Lovers. Enemy Lovers, go, go look it up. Yeah, somebody, one of our friends Victor Davinas, he said you look like the survivor of a boy band.

Juan · 6:01
Yeah, I was like, is that a compliment or is that a cutdown?

Tim · 6:05
I don't know.

Reggie · 6:06
I think it was a, it was a compli-sult.

Tim · 6:09
What about you, Alyssa?

Alyssa · 6:12
What do you think of Well, that's very relatable what you're saying about music. I, my mind just goes to youth, like high school through college. I feel like I have a lot of nostalgia for those years, but at the same time, I wouldn't want to go back to them.

Reggie · 6:26
Oh, gosh, yeah, same.

Alyssa · 6:28
But there's like—

Tim · 6:29
I don't know, wouldn't you go back though, knowing what you know? I would go back. I would be so much cooler.

Alyssa · 6:33
Well, I do think about that, but the point of being a teenager is, well, not the point of being a teenager, but you're kind of an idiot.

Tim · 6:39
Yeah, yeah.

Alyssa · 6:39
Like, I don't think I could ever have the same like depth of—

Juan · 6:42
You're just like, YOLO.

Alyssa · 6:43
Oh yeah.

Tim · 6:45
You'd actually be a terrible teenager going back.

Alyssa · 6:47
No, I probably would be really annoying compared to all the other teenagers.

Juan · 6:50
I would be more annoying if I went back, if I had any remembrance of, 'cause I would be more, I would be more YOLO because I was more like, I was more like, oh, I'm setting myself up for the rest of my life. I better not mess this up. God's watching, you know? Like, so I wasn't like YOLO. I was like, I'm not going to sleep with you.

Reggie · 7:10
Better behave.

Alyssa · 7:11
'Cause that'd be a bad idea. I definitely—

Tim · 7:12
now you'd be like, I'm young and I'm living.

Juan · 7:14
Yes, the answer is yes, girl. Like, yeah.

Reggie · 7:16
Anyways, I would love to go back.

Alyssa · 7:18
No, I would go now. Oh, well, yeah, if I, if I could like retain all the same knowledge. Yeah, but I would—

Juan · 7:24
or at least like some of it.

Tim · 7:26
Do you feel like— yeah, do you feel like that time was so intense or difficult that you feel like that you, you're glad you're through it?

Alyssa · 7:32
Um, yes and no. I think like when I think about the nostalgia factor, I just think about Well, kind of what you were saying, like the '90s, like we didn't have access to the media. Like it was kind of like this blissful ignorance. Like we didn't know what was going on every second of the day in every place in the world. And there's something very peaceful about that. And also not having the same burden of responsibility. Like I would never want to be a kid again. Like being an adult is great, but also there's something nice about not having to worry about paying taxes and all that kind of stuff.

Reggie · 8:04
Oh, I know, right?

Alyssa · 8:05
Gosh, that was my life.

Reggie · 8:06
Or how you're going to pay your bills or any of it. like—

Alyssa · 8:08
It's like in the same way that we look at our cats and we're like, what a life, wouldn't that be nice?

Reggie · 8:12
I know, right? Basking in the sunspot all day, getting fed, getting—

Juan · 8:16
No clothes on, just a little collar.

Reggie · 8:18
Yeah, I know, right? You know what's funny? I saw a meme the other day and it was, it said something to the effect of, my subjects feed me and—

Tim · 8:35
This is a cat, right?

Reggie · 8:36
It was a cat.

Tim · 8:37
Yeah.

Reggie · 8:37
But the way it was framed is though you actually didn't know that It was a cat and it just read like, yeah, my subjects bring me food, do this, and sometimes I will reward them with a smile or whatever. And then on the next slide it was like, it was a cat. Yeah, it's like, yeah, that's pretty much the life of a cat.

Tim · 8:56
I have this interesting— I think nostalgia is a surprise always. Like, it never— you don't know when it's gonna happen. You know, you'll just be like smelling, you'll smell something in the air I know, scents. Scents are things that bring back something, and all of a sudden it's just something floods back, and I find it invigorating.

Reggie · 9:18
Yeah, nostalgia, it makes you feel alive, right? Because it takes you back to an awareness that you've been around long enough to have a nostalgic moment, right?

Juan · 9:27
But it's not déjà vu.

Tim · 9:29
No, not at all déjà vu.

Juan · 9:31
But like, I, I always, as a musician, I'm always like, music is one of the most powerful things to bring people together. But what's more powerful than music is food. And food is basically smell, right? Like taste and smell is the— is a big part of it. And smell, I think, is potentially one of the most like memory activating experiences. The smell of something like a perfume or like—

Tim · 9:57
Yeah. Oh yeah. When I smell CK One, that takes me right back to high school.

Reggie · 10:01
Oh heck yeah, it does.

Tim · 10:02
Yeah, same.

Reggie · 10:03
I don't smell it though. Where are you smelling CK One?

Tim · 10:05
You know, if you go to Belk, I always stop by and smell it just so I can go back. If you're near a Belk, I know they've closed down somewhat.

Reggie · 10:13
I actually had a, I had a food nostalgia recently. So I haven't done fast food in like, like maybe 30 years. It's been a long time. But—

Juan · 10:24
Wait, hold on. When's the last time you had fast food?

Tim · 10:25
Probably like 15 or 20 years. Like 2 weeks ago.

Alyssa · 10:31
I don't really eat it either, but I probably have had a Frosty in the last couple months.

Juan · 10:35
Okay, I just had to.

Reggie · 10:37
Okay, go ahead, go ahead. So I used to, um, Jack in the Box.

Tim · 10:42
You know what, it's Chick-fil-A.

Reggie · 10:43
Chick-fil-A's fast food. Oh yeah, Chick-fil-A.

Tim · 10:45
All right, a couple weeks ago.

Juan · 10:46
I have kids, come clean, come on.

Tim · 10:48
Yeah, I don't know why I put Chick-fil-A out of the fast food category.

Reggie · 10:50
It is probably the fastest, one of the best fast food, one of the best. So Jack in the Box used to have these tacos. There were these 3 tacos. There was like meat and beans, and it was like greasy and flat. Mmm, sounds good. Ah, it was so good. I used to love those. Recently I bought these little tacos from Trader Joe's, and they are the same exact vibe. They have poblano peppers, and maybe that's it, like maybe some cheese or beans or something, but they're the same, like greasy. You put them in an air fryer, you heat them up, And I took a bite and I was like, damn, it took me right back to those— to 30-some years ago when I was doing those Jack in the Box.

Tim · 11:37
It's funny you bring up fast food because my son was talking to me about Taco Bell for some reason, and I was like, oh, I used to love Taco Bell. You know, like the little— the chilito and the little— what's the one that was like tiny little Mexican pizzas? Mexican pizza.

Reggie · 11:51
Those are so good.

Tim · 11:52
And so he was like, oh yeah, they were showing this commercial, this one that's got steak and cheese and it's all— and I was like, I want you to go to Taco Bell and try that. Go, go see. And then I want you to do a side-by-side and maybe like do a video of it. This is what we're being shown, and this is what I'm— what I've just received. And it just hit me. I was this—

Juan · 12:11
It reminds me of voting, you know?

Tim · 12:13
Yeah, right. And, and it's— and I was like, I'm telling him this, and then I was like, why are we okay with this? Yeah, being, uh, being lied to. Straight up lied to.

Juan · 12:26
The bait and switch. Exactly.

Tim · 12:27
You, if you would just put this picture of fake food, I've seen food photography, it's literally just fake food in there in the frame.

Juan · 12:34
And it's like glue. They use like all this non-food things. Toxic.

Reggie · 12:37
We've created a culture of dishonesty. I was thinking about it because I'm a gamer. Like I love phone games. And a lot of times you'll be playing a game and they'll show this ad for some game and you're like, wow, that looks amazing. And you go and you download the game and it's Nothing like the video.

Juan · 12:54
You got to do some other quest to get to the ad game, or it's not— or it's not even there at all.

Reggie · 13:00
Or it's not even there. There's some that's completely different. There are some like, oh gosh, I forget the name.

Juan · 13:06
Like King's Quest or something.

Reggie · 13:06
Yeah, yeah, something like that. Exactly. You know what they actually did? They finally came out with a game that matches their ads, probably because they got so much heat and pushback because all the reviews were like, this is nothing like the ad. And so now they have a completely different game by the same company. That is all those where he's like trying— you have to do the match 3 to save him from some dragon or something.

Juan · 13:29
Yeah. Oh, I love that.

Reggie · 13:30
I love the apps. They have that now.

Tim · 13:31
I would challenge every fast food restaurant to do this side-by-side test, to push themselves to the limits of whether or not they're lying to their public. Because I was trying—

Juan · 13:40
Then once we get that refined, then we should do that for politics.

Tim · 13:42
Oh man, don't get me started. No, but I was—

Reggie · 13:46
That is a deep well.

Tim · 13:47
Have you seen the KFC did a rebrand?

Reggie · 13:49
No. You see this?

Tim · 13:50
Like, it's this big, cool letters and they're focusing on the little bucket that they have, this classic thing. And so I'm driving by a KFC this morning to get here and I thought about the rebrand and I was like, it's similar to the Taco Bell thing. I was like, why don't— why do they just did a rebrand, KFC? I mean, all the restaurants look different. They had this real stripped back to the Colonel's face. They took Kentucky Fried Chicken out of the name.

Juan · 14:13
They can't mention chicken.

Tim · 14:14
Right. Because of certain issues.

Reggie · 14:16
Is that real? Because I was just thinking about—

Tim · 14:18
I don't know if that was an urban legend.

Reggie · 14:19
They said they were like manufacturing them to not have beaks and feathers so they'd be easier.

Juan · 14:25
Mutants.

Tim · 14:25
We'll leave that to the internet to discuss.

Reggie · 14:27
But yeah, I'm not going to go out to say that that's what's going on, but I heard it was an urban legend.

Tim · 14:33
I guess the point, what I felt there was that what if a fast food restaurant did a rebrand and changed nothing about their look and feel? and rebranded what they were, like a values-led rebrand. Like Domino's, I think, did this one time. Remember when they started doing— they really featured the quality of their pizzas as being— they either said your money back or they said we're just making quick pizzas. Something they did really— it's like this game. It resonated with the reality of the experience, like the fastest pizza you'll get.

Reggie · 15:06
They're like, we need to actually match the experience. Yeah.

Tim · 15:09
And it really resonated with the audience. So I wondered if when are we done with just being lied to? Yeah, like, were they always lying to us? Like, did Taco Bell always look— because I remember loving it. I have nostalgia of what Taco Bell tasted like.

Juan · 15:23
I think—

Tim · 15:24
or did it taste—

Juan · 15:24
I think objectively food in the '80s and '90s, even fast food, was better. Yeah, yeah, it was definitely better because, I mean, they have had whatever, 20, 30, coming up on 40 years to like squeeze more money out of less quality, you know, because that's the gap is where you make your profit.

Reggie · 15:41
When you're in a capitalistic world, then they're obviously going to try to cut as many corners as they can.

Juan · 15:47
And they'll approach it scientifically to where it's like you're just eventually you're just eating a piece of cardboard that tastes good, right? For like one, for like one second as it goes in your mouth and then it's over and you got to get another one.

Tim · 15:57
You know, like French fries, you have about 20 seconds to eat French fries.

Juan · 16:00
And then you can tell your kid it used to be like really good, like McDonald's used to be really good.

Tim · 16:04
I just thought that was me. Like, would we just have bad taste? back then, but I think it was better.

Alyssa · 16:09
I think there is some— I mean, I don't know, but my personal theory is that they probably have changed in order to like make the food faster and cheaper. But I also think like as a kid, like going back to the kid nostalgia thing, like our perception of simple things is like, this is the best thing ever. And then when you're older and you're like, wow, remember that thing from our youth? And then you try it and you're like, this is awful.

Reggie · 16:34
I'm sure even toys too. We go back and look at toys that we played with.

Alyssa · 16:37
We're like, man, this is It's the best toy ever.

Reggie · 16:40
And you're like, yeah, it's like smaller.

Juan · 16:42
Smaller than you remember it. Smaller than you remember it. Yeah, that's true.

Alyssa · 16:44
That's true.

Juan · 16:45
So we were healthier as like a little kid. You're like, oh, this is delicious. Now it's like, well, yeah, I can feel this is not that healthy for me.

Alyssa · 16:52
Like a box of fried pie and cheese as a kid was like the best thing.

Juan · 16:56
I bounced back like that. Like, yeah.

Reggie · 16:58
I put away a lot of Happy Meals when I was a kid, so I'm glad it was hopefully maybe healthier.

Alyssa · 17:03
Hopefully. Maybe.

Tim · 17:05
I don't have any data to back that up. I mean, but maybe you brought up the ignorance of being young.

Reggie · 17:08
Yeah, there is definitely a bliss that's— that we don't realize.

Alyssa · 17:12
And you don't—

Reggie · 17:13
yeah, things are better than this.

Alyssa · 17:14
And kids like don't have like a developed palate. Like you don't really—

Reggie · 17:19
oh, that's like—

Alyssa · 17:19
kids don't usually like—

Reggie · 17:20
They don't have a refined palate.

Juan · 17:21
Either way, you can say a refined palate or a destroyed palate. Yeah, it's like alcohol tastes good.

Tim · 17:28
It's like, no, it doesn't. I never tasted it. No, that doesn't—

Juan · 17:32
it doesn't really taste good. Like, if you just give Compromise your way to be like, this is good because it keeps me awake.

Alyssa · 17:38
You get—

Tim · 17:39
you give kid, any, any kid black coffee and they're gonna tell you it tastes terrible.

Reggie · 17:43
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think, I think so. I never acquired a taste for beer, and I think it was simply because of that. I tasted it the first time, I was like, God, this is horrible. Why is everybody drinking this?

Juan · 17:54
What's the big deal?

Reggie · 17:54
They're like, you just have to acquire a taste for it. I said, why?

Juan · 17:57
Yeah, exactly.

Reggie · 17:58
Why do I want to do that?

Tim · 17:59
You have to be worn down.

Reggie · 18:00
Yeah. And so I would get like a, you know, a cooler. Remember they had those wine coolers? Yeah, that was like my beverage.

Tim · 18:07
But you still like your sweet drinks?

Reggie · 18:08
I do. I love, love some fruit drinks, love some ciders. But yeah, beer I never acquired a taste for.

Alyssa · 18:15
Same, me neither.

Reggie · 18:15
Yeah.

Juan · 18:16
What about Kool-Aid? Did you ever get into Kool-Aid?

Reggie · 18:19
Dude, I put backs in Kool-Aid, but then I grew up. I was like, this is so much sugar. I think what happened was I saw an aunt or somebody make it one day, and I saw them dump like 2—

Tim · 18:32
Oh yeah.

Reggie · 18:33
Things of sugar in it. Maybe I was like, damn.

Tim · 18:36
Maybe this is why we don't like fast food, because we see how things are made.

Reggie · 18:41
Yeah, yeah. We know how it's made.

Tim · 18:42
And then we see how they can't possibly make them good in that situation.

Alyssa · 18:46
Yeah, yeah.

Tim · 18:47
Not to mention, we've seen all like the backstage videos about what happens in the back of a fast food restaurant.

Juan · 18:51
Yeah. What was that? Oh yeah.

Reggie · 18:52
What was the one with the guy that ate McDonald's for like 40 days or something.

Juan · 18:56
That guy. Super Size Me.

Tim · 18:57
Super Size Me.

Juan · 18:58
Yeah.

Tim · 18:58
And then there was also that—

Reggie · 19:00
Can't unsee that.

Alyssa · 19:01
No.

Juan · 19:03
No. And then what, like the last time, not the last, I think the last time I went to Burger King, like I remember I pulled up, I ordered a Whopper, and the kid that handed it to me, he looked like maybe 15 or something or 16. He didn't look me in the eyes. He was looking off. He's like, he was like, it was like he was handing me drugs or something.

Alyssa · 19:25
He was looking off in the distance.

Juan · 19:27
And he handed it to me. Guess what I did with that Whopper?

Tim · 19:30
Threw it right out the window.

Juan · 19:30
I drove right to a trash can and I threw it. I was like, I—

Tim · 19:34
the vibe is just way off.

Reggie · 19:34
He's like, if you can't look at me with good conscience and hand me this, then I am not eating it.

Juan · 19:39
I just feel like you did something to this burger and I don't— you're looking for your mom out in the parking lot, like making sure she's not watching.

Alyssa · 19:47
Like, that's hilarious.

Tim · 19:47
So apparently fast food restaurants are a part of our nostalgia.

Reggie · 19:50
Yes.

Tim · 19:52
Do you think they're a dying trend? Because I was just thinking about like Arby's, like these things just feel old. And like, do you think people still go to these places?

Juan · 20:00
I saw an ad that said if you've eaten Arby's in the past, whatever, you know, you might be owed money.

Reggie · 20:05
Like, oh yeah, that's not a good sign.

Juan · 20:09
Yeah.

Tim · 20:10
So, but you just think of the trend of fast food, like, is it dying or are we just in a place? I think Asheville is a foodie.

Reggie · 20:17
It's definitely a foodie town. I mean, people are always going to be on the run and they need to be able to grab quick things. And I think fast food's always gonna have its place for that.

Tim · 20:30
Yeah, like Five Guys, Chick-fil-A.

Reggie · 20:32
These are like—

Juan · 20:32
Five Guys is way better though.

Reggie · 20:33
I just don't think it's gonna be most people's first option. You know, you don't wake up and go, God, I wanna get a Big Mac and a quarter— you know, I don't think—

Tim · 20:44
I bet people do wake up with that feeling.

Reggie · 20:47
Maybe they do.

Tim · 20:48
Maybe they do. Isn't that what it's made to be?

Reggie · 20:49
I don't wanna be a hater for I'm not sure.

Tim · 20:51
It just, it's made you that feeling.

Reggie · 20:52
Yeah.

Alyssa · 20:53
I would be curious. I mean, I don't have kids. Maybe you have insights into this, or all of you. What does, like, what is like the high school and college generations? Are they into it? Or are they— what, how is the health trend like getting into the—

Reggie · 21:09
My 22-year-old has never had fast food.

Alyssa · 21:11
Really?

Reggie · 21:12
Yeah. Never.

Alyssa · 21:13
I love that.

Reggie · 21:14
My kids have never had fast food. I used to have it.

Alyssa · 21:17
You don't as a parent.

Reggie · 21:18
Also, but yeah.

Juan · 21:19
But would she tell you if she had?

Reggie · 21:21
No, she actually is completely—

Tim · 21:24
Let's have this discussion, Reggie.

Reggie · 21:26
Yeah, no, she—

Tim · 21:27
Your daughter is perfect. She would totally tell me.

Reggie · 21:29
She'd be like—

Tim · 21:30
Definitely would tell me.

Reggie · 21:31
I had a Mac, I had a Big Mac the other day and it wasn't as bad.

Alyssa · 21:33
Yeah, that's what I'm wondering is like her age group, are they into it or are they like, we want healthier food?

Reggie · 21:39
I don't know. That's a really good question. I will say this. I do find that the Gen Z kids are so different. Like, they— their communication is different. They're— I was just thinking about this yesterday because one of the hosts that we were supposed to have on our guest that we're supposed to have on the show is a Gen Z kid. Super awesome. He's like a nephew to me. But he— I think they're so used to communicating through like TikTok and Snapchat that like texting and like emails and things like that are just so kind of foreign. Old school. Yeah, it's like—

Juan · 22:16
I mean, I'm kind of down with that. Like when you were like, oh yeah, you were telling me about this, doing this, and you're like, what's your email? I was like, oh man, I gotta— okay, all right, let me double— let me rethink this. I gotta read an email right now in order— I was like, fast, can I just pull up and talk?

Reggie · 22:31
Like, are you Gen Z?

Juan · 22:32
No, but I do hang out with a lot of teenagers But he has teenagers. Yeah. But my kids, because my kids, their mom and I, like, we both pretty much eat pretty healthy, like, you know, and we— and they grew up in Asheville, you know, so it's like they had a lot— like, they were spoiled with a lot of really healthy farm-to-table options. They didn't really have fast food. The first time I took my daughter to Bruegger's Bagels, like she's 15 now, but she was like maybe 4 or 5 then. She said, Daddy, and she looked at me and she's like, she's looking around like, she's like, never take me to this place again.

Tim · 23:10
Seriously?

Alyssa · 23:11
Yeah.

Juan · 23:12
Or she said, never take me to a place like this again. And I was like, okay, word.

Alyssa · 23:17
Okay.

Reggie · 23:18
But that is the way that answers your question.

Juan · 23:21
But well, this is the rest of the answer, at least for my experience, is that then once I started getting a little older and having more of a social life with other kids, they were just like, anti-healthy. They basically be like, Dad, will you get us a snack from the food? I'd be like, what do you want? Anything not healthy.

Alyssa · 23:38
Yeah.

Reggie · 23:38
Oh yeah.

Tim · 23:38
My 17-year-old is all over that. That's a rebellion. I eat— we went traveling, we ate in Europe, and food is amazing around the world.

Juan · 23:48
Absolutely.

Tim · 23:48
And when you come back to America, you're like, oh, I got to come back into this expensive, expensive bad food. And he loved it. He was like, great, I get all my dyes and I get all my additives. And I'm like, what are you doing? You're hurting me. I think it's just rebellion. There's no—

Alyssa · 24:04
But this is another element of the nostalgia when you could eat whatever you want and it didn't matter.

Tim · 24:09
You were totally fine. Yeah, because we didn't die.

Reggie · 24:12
Drink somehow.

Tim · 24:13
Yeah, Megan and I were just talking about how we can't do anything right now. You know, like everything we do is a failure. You're not eating right. You're not doing your life right. You're not— there's always so much self-help.

Juan · 24:25
You could be doing more, right?

Tim · 24:27
You could do this to save the world. You could do this to save your family. You could do this to save your kids' lives and their future. You do this to save— and you're not doing any of it. And if you are trying, you're not doing it right.

Reggie · 24:37
Right.

Tim · 24:37
And there are 7 more steps.

Juan · 24:39
And then if you're doing it all, you're doing too much.

Reggie · 24:41
Yeah.

Tim · 24:42
Then you're overworking and you're—

Alyssa · 24:43
yeah.

Tim · 24:43
So there's like this, why now? Like, I remember when we were younger, you didn't know if you were doing something right.

Alyssa · 24:49
Yeah.

Tim · 24:49
You had tests at school. That was pretty much the bar for if you were doing things right. And And I don't know, that felt so much more present, like you were doing your life and figuring it out.

Reggie · 25:00
I think we should go back to that. I think we should go back to establishing our own bar for winning and what winning looks like.

Tim · 25:06
Right.

Reggie · 25:07
But when society is telling you you're not winning because you're not this, you're not that, then you're constantly having this state of like failure and like dysfunction. It doesn't feel good.

Juan · 25:18
I oftentimes compare myself to an animal because I'm just like, well, An animal doesn't. Yeah, like, I mean, basically what we're talking about right now, I'll just be like, how am I doing to society standards? Not too well. To a mountain lion's standards, really good. I know I can go to Five Guys tonight and get a really good burger, you know what I mean? Like, and I'll be good for another 24 hours.

Tim · 25:40
But this is why you introduce yourself as a happy person. I feel like that— there's something big to that.

Reggie · 25:45
There is something to that for sure. I, I absolutely—

Juan · 25:48
because at the end of the day, Well, I mean, it's, it's, you know, having kids and stuff and people to take care of makes it be like, okay, I got to be a smart mountain lion.

Tim · 25:54
But like, you know, like, still, like, what does it take to take care of a kid? You just give them food and water and make sure they stay alive, right?

Juan · 26:04
Yeah. Sometimes for like 24, 48 hours at a time. We're good right now. I'm rich right now.

Tim · 26:10
Life has become so complicated, you know, like all the things we have to do. Like, how many things do we have to really do? in order to live? If you just left, or if you got stranded on— let's just do this as a test. If you got stranded on an island with your kids or without your kids, what— oh, this came because we watched that movie. Remember that movie? What movie?

Reggie · 26:30
Yeah.

Juan · 26:31
Castaways?

Tim · 26:32
No, that's a good one. It came up when we were watching it. She gets—

Juan · 26:37
she is—

Tim · 26:38
anyway, whatever.

Reggie · 26:39
Is it the one we just watched? Yeah.

Tim · 26:40
It's called— We have a guys' movie club where we watch random intense movies. It's kind of a horror movie. But they get stranded.

Reggie · 26:46
It's the one with Rachel McAdams. It's called—

Tim · 26:48
Yeah. Rachel McAdams is stranded on a beach with her—

Reggie · 26:51
Send Help.

Tim · 26:52
Yes.

Reggie · 26:53
That's it.

Tim · 26:53
Send Help. Okay. So thank you, Will.

Alyssa · 26:55
Thanks, Will.

Tim · 26:56
So what if we got stranded on a beach on an island? How do you live? What is essential to living life?

Juan · 27:03
My dad is a survival teacher. So what he says is— what he says is that I think this is a good measurement. If you have what it takes to make a cup of tea, you're probably good. Which means like— That's pretty good. Water, fire, maybe like a cup or something.

Tim · 27:19
Some kind of herbs or something.

Juan · 27:20
And then, yeah, then something to put in the water. Like, then you're doing pretty good.

Tim · 27:25
I love that.

Reggie · 27:25
That's pretty good. Yeah, that's—

Tim · 27:27
so that's what I'm saying. Like, to raise a child in this world, to be alive on planet Earth. I have that.

Juan · 27:33
I've got what it takes to make a cup of tea right now. Make it right now.

Tim · 27:35
We could do it right now.

Juan · 27:37
We got some little quick pots. That's covered. Now we just got to think, reverse engineer. Okay, what's the next thing? This is the next level.

Tim · 27:43
Right. But I think that there could be this— I think we're like in a world where we're trying to be sold a lot of things. So adding more things is all you can do when you're trying to sell something to someone who's got a lot, who can already make tea. So you have to sell them a better, quicker water boiler or a better tea bag strainer or whatever it is. You got to make something better and then they feel like they need something more. But really, there's like— I think when I think back to when I first got my license and I had no phone.

Juan · 28:11
Your driver's license?

Tim · 28:12
My driver's license, had my car, no directions. I actually went and got lost, literally got lost accidentally.

Reggie · 28:19
Oh, accidentally.

Tim · 28:20
I just wanted to drive and experience it, and I thought I knew where I was, and then I realized I didn't know where I was, and I had to find a payphone.

Juan · 28:26
That's awesome.

Tim · 28:27
It was so awesome.

Juan · 28:28
And a payphone.

Reggie · 28:29
Oh, and a payphone.

Juan · 28:30
I was watching The Matrix last night and they have the payphones and I was like, what if like the reason, one of the, maybe the real reason why there's no more payphones is because that way we can't get out of the Matrix. We can't go find a payphone and get out of the Matrix. I see where you're going.

Tim · 28:45
The Matrix is the truth.

Juan · 28:48
There still are payphones in like Nevada somewhere. My dad was telling me there's some town that's like so far removed, they've got payphones still that work, that function.

Tim · 28:57
Okay, so get this. My son tells me—

Juan · 28:59
Love that.

Tim · 28:59
Dad, I'm going to spend my whole paycheck on this gun skin. He plays Valorant, this game where they first-person shoot each other and there's all this strategy and they have— you can't see the person, so you're not buying a suit or an outfit. You're actually buying the color of the gun and kind of what it does when it shoots. It makes a sound and it does something in the world, but no one else from any other perspective can see what it does. It's just for your own Sense of—

Juan · 29:25
it still just shoots and like it's just still shooting.

Tim · 29:28
Exactly.

Juan · 29:28
It changes feeling for the shooter.

Tim · 29:29
Exactly. And it costs— here's what it costs: $25 for the skin of this gun.

Reggie · 29:35
Dude, my kids have spent so much on— well, just my son has spent so much on Robux. Yeah. So he can buy stuff in Roblox that he can't ever do anything tangible with.

Tim · 29:48
So I'm giving him a hard time.

Reggie · 29:50
Yeah.

Tim · 29:51
And I'm like, why? And I'm like, I would have priced— who priced this? Because I would have priced this all wrong. I'd have been like, 99 cents, please buy this skin. And they're paying $25. And so I try to talk to him and understand because I want to understand him. And this doesn't compute. So I'm talking to him and I'm like, so why? Why would you want to spend? Because he's going to buy this big pack that's $75 and it comes with all these classic skins.

Reggie · 30:16
That's crazy.

Tim · 30:17
So I'm like, please help me understand. And so he's like, Dad, okay. So he starts to pull— he pulls out his phone and he's showing me, and he's like, this skin comes from this time, and then they hired an artist to create this skin, and then there's a— there's these sounds that happen, and each skin has a different sound at every shot, and then there's this artwork that happens when they— when it explodes and they beat— they kill someone. And I started thinking about it from a very different perspective. It was art.

Alyssa · 30:44
Yeah.

Tim · 30:44
They were buying. And then I was like, he's on this game for hours.

Reggie · 30:48
Yeah.

Tim · 30:48
So what did we do as kids? If we were doing something for hours, we would try to buy the coolest thing in that, whatever it was.

Reggie · 30:55
We would ride our bikes around town. So we wanted the coolest bikes and we wanted like the coolest sunglasses.

Tim · 30:59
Because that's where we were the most of the time. We wanted someone to see us.

Reggie · 31:02
That makes sense.

Tim · 31:03
And so when he's in the game and everyone else is in the game for 12 and 15 hours a day, no one sees him out in the world. So spending— I mean, there's another game.

Juan · 31:10
So people see him the most.

Tim · 31:11
Right. They see them with that gun skin and they're like, That guy has this— there's one game that's not Valorant but came before Valorant. I can't remember what it's called. And there's a skin in that game for their gun that's $50,000.

Reggie · 31:22
Damn.

Tim · 31:24
And even more. There's more. They're collector's items. They're rare.

Reggie · 31:27
You could buy multiple cars.

Tim · 31:29
Right. But you remember the NFT movement and the Bored Ape Yacht Club?

Reggie · 31:34
Yeah.

Tim · 31:35
They would buy these profile pictures to go on Twitter, and these were like $500,000 pictures, JPEGs, because these people were spending so much time in that world that people were looking at them from that perspective. So it was like buying a Ferrari.

Reggie · 31:50
So they saw the value.

Tim · 31:51
If you were being seen in the real world more, more times than not, like when I was growing up, buying a Ferrari was the coolest thing ever because you pull up in front of a hotel or in front of a casino. I don't know why I'm naming these weird things in Vegas. No, I just imagine a Ferrari being in Vegas.

Juan · 32:04
Well, that's like why, like, a rapper would, like, rent a Ferrari for the music video. Because people are going to see it even though you don't really got a Ferrari. But also, like, Even— but you guys talk about your bikes and stuff like that. But still, the bike is like real world. It's, it's different. It's different than the skins. But you know, it's the Matrix.

Tim · 32:24
But you know, that's what I'm saying. The Matrix. They're in the game. We, if we're in the game, buying a bike is our version of what they're doing from a meta level.

Reggie · 32:33
I get it. That's where they are.

Juan · 32:34
I think even better, an even better example, I think for us, what I thought of when you were talking about this, first was just music. Like, I would spend $75 on music.

Tim · 32:45
On a collector's album, easily. What does it do?

Juan · 32:47
Like, what does it do? It's not a bike. It's not a car. It's not a physical thing. It's— I mean, you do have the physical art, so that is a little bit different, but it's mostly the nothing, the, like, the sound.

Tim · 32:59
The sound. It's sound waves.

Juan · 33:00
The intangible thing.

Tim · 33:00
You should see me trying to explain to my daughter that she would have to buy an album to listen to it. She looked up a new album. We have Apple Music like everyone does. And I was like, you know what? If we didn't have Apple Music, you'd have to buy that album. She's like, what do you mean?

Juan · 33:14
You have to go to the store.

Tim · 33:15
We used to have to go and buy a CD. And without that CD, we couldn't listen to it. It wasn't anywhere else. It would pop up on the radio.

Reggie · 33:23
That's nostalgia for sure.

Alyssa · 33:25
Yeah.

Tim · 33:25
Buying a CD.

Reggie · 33:26
You know what died hard for me was switching to digital music formats And that's when we didn't— one of the things I love so much, certainly as a designer, was getting the CD and getting the art and opening up the CD. And if they went the extra mile and had a really nice box set, when you had a little sleeve and you pulled out the little booklet, this is coming back, beautifully designed. You had all these things.

Alyssa · 33:51
Yeah.

Reggie · 33:52
You would look at it.

Alyssa · 33:53
Yeah. I used to spend hours just like listening to the album and reading the lyrics and I knew every song. what song came after what song.

Tim · 34:00
In order on the album.

Alyssa · 34:01
Yes. And like the whole album together is very intentional. Like there's a story throughout the whole album. And now with Spotify, like I recognize that, like I know these songs, but I have no idea what it's called or who sings it.

Tim · 34:13
It's not a playlist.

Reggie · 34:14
Or the lyrics. You have to like go to a separate screen to get the lyrics right.

Tim · 34:17
I know.

Juan · 34:18
My wife's like, what are you listening to right now? I was like, I don't even know. Let me go back and look at this one song on my Spotify. Oh, it's It's called— it's this, you know, that's what it is.

Alyssa · 34:27
You remember how you used to—

Tim · 34:28
you remember those CD books? You'd take your CD out of the CD case and slide it in the thing, and then it all gets taken away.

Juan · 34:33
That's what I was talking about.

Tim · 34:34
Someone steals it.

Juan · 34:35
Someone steals it, and you're just all the empty cases with no CDs or covers.

Tim · 34:38
But you used to keep track of your collection that way, you know? Like, I had one in my truck. I used to work on the road a lot, and I had a CD case that was the full-on 4 CDs.

Reggie · 34:49
Oh yeah.

Tim · 34:50
In a zip-bound binder.

Reggie · 34:52
Yeah, yeah, I remember those too.

Tim · 34:52
And it was massive.

Juan · 34:53
It was like a book.

Reggie · 34:54
Yeah, like a book.

Tim · 34:56
I used to leave it in my passenger seat. I'd pick it up, put it in my lap, and I'd like flip through it, and I could just remember all my music. It's so fun. Yes, it was so fun. There was something about that experience.

Reggie · 35:05
Yeah, Case Logic. It was Case Logic was the company. Yeah.

Tim · 35:09
And now Apple Music is like recommendation, and it's the same album. I get this. I listen to the same 3 albums all the time, and I can't even think of another album. I'm like, what do you listen to? Like you, I'm like, I don't know. And if you flip back through my hits, you know, like you have your own personal hits, they're all my kids' songs. So it's like Daddy Go and there's just random music. Like Ezra has this cool— he has cool taste.

Reggie · 35:31
Do they not have their own Apple?

Tim · 35:32
No, they listen to mine.

Reggie · 35:34
Get them on the family plan.

Tim · 35:36
Give them their own.

Juan · 35:36
But they don't have their own phones, right?

Reggie · 35:38
They don't have playlists.

Tim · 35:38
Well, they're starting to get their own phones, but he doesn't. But that is the thing though, not having— there's no physical artifact. Like I think when we were buying CDs, CDs or tapes. Like, I remember—

Reggie · 35:50
Oh, tapes, dude.

Tim · 35:51
So I was so desperate for the sound waves.

Reggie · 35:53
I have a rewind to the beginning.

Tim · 35:54
I was so desperate, I would sit on the radio with a tape ready to record.

Reggie · 35:57
Oh yeah, same.

Tim · 35:58
I remember the song even. I was right— I was at a radio, I had my tape, and I was waiting for Deadeye Dick. Um, it was a song that was on Dumb and Dumber.

Reggie · 36:07
Oh, funny.

Tim · 36:08
Anyway, I'm waiting there and it came on and I hit the record button and I had it on tape. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Reggie · 36:15
I love that.

Tim · 36:16
But when you have the artifact, and this is coming back with vinyl, K-pop, they will sell— my niece, she has bought the same album like 3 times. Exact same songs, but each member of the band, I think this is what I understood from her, each member of the band puts their own flair on the art and the images in it. So it's like all this one member of the band. And so she's buying every one for the artifact of this collection that she's making.

Juan · 36:44
But it's physical?

Tim · 36:45
It's physical.

Juan · 36:46
Yeah.

Tim · 36:46
She buys the actual physical CDs, CD and case. It's like this really high design. Yeah. And my daughter just said she wants to buy CDs. I'm like, oh, I love that. So I don't know what's happening. And if you're like, we don't have anywhere to play them, but yeah, I know, because my dad brought me a CD I made when I was like 18 and I was like, yes, I've been looking for this. Where do I play it? I don't even have the SuperDrive. You used to get with your laptop and you plug it in. Yeah, but I don't think it works with the new OS.

Reggie · 37:16
Oh, does it not?

Alyssa · 37:17
I don't think it works.

Reggie · 37:17
I should bring mine in because I have one. I bought one foolishly. It was the funniest thing, actually. It was one of those senior moments, I think. But I had all my old, like, client CDs, all my CDs with all my, like, DVD, DVD-ROMs with all my, like, client work. From like right after high school and all through the years until I stopped using DVDs. And one day they were in my garage and I was like so over them, like, I gotta get rid of some of this stuff. So I'm like, am I ever gonna go back to these old like college, you know, zip files and all these college projects? So I started cracking them and throwing them in the trash, cracking them and throwing them in the trash, and I got rid of them.

Alyssa · 37:58
Wow.

Reggie · 37:58
Then I totally forgot. And one day I was in Best Buy and I saw the CD-ROM or the SuperDrive. And I was like, oh yes, I can get this and go look at my old work.

Tim · 38:10
And you had already cracked it all.

Juan · 38:12
But you had had to crack it before you put it.

Reggie · 38:15
You could have thrown it away.

Juan · 38:17
You could have just lightly put it down in there.

Reggie · 38:19
No, I didn't want somebody to—

Juan · 38:19
You had to crack it. No going back.

Tim · 38:22
This is the—

Reggie · 38:22
nobody's going to see it. But yeah, I was so— when I remember when I had that epiphany, I was like, oh, that's right, I threw them away.

Tim · 38:31
So maybe there is this— I don't know if it's with everything, but there is with music. It is ethereal and it makes us feel so much. We want an artifact of its existence.

Reggie · 38:40
Totally. I think there's a reason, you know, like cling on to it.

Tim · 38:43
And why kids are starting to— right.

Juan · 38:45
And kids are saying vinyl hasn't gone away. No, vinyl is continuing to grow. And I saw this thing last night or yesterday or the day before, but it was like this guy, I forget the artist's name, but he was making these records, these vinyl records that had 3 different ways to play it. If you put it in one hole, then it's on this track. You put it in the next hole, it's on the outer track.

Alyssa · 39:07
Wow.

Juan · 39:07
You put it in the last hole, it's on this other track.

Reggie · 39:09
That's cool.

Juan · 39:09
And each record cost like $1,000 or $5K. Like, he would make like 100 of them and then sell it for, you know, $100 or $500 or $1,000 or $5,000. Like, and yeah, so—

Tim · 39:25
So scarcity, it's scarcity, right? Those are like quality, quality and scarcity.

Juan · 39:30
Super high quality and the music being really good. But, you know, I kind of wonder, like CDs, cassettes, vinyls, all 3 of those things are terrible for the environment.

Tim · 39:40
Yeah, because they're— because they're making—

Juan · 39:42
so cool in a way that they have that we still have vinyls. Vinyl is plastic, polyvinyl chloride, isn't it? Yeah, it's like PVC. And so when that— when there was that big train explosion of polyvinyl chloride in like, what was it, Pennsylvania, a couple years— like a few years ago, like this big environmental disaster, that was the substance that we make vinyl out of. Oh wow, vinyl records.

Tim · 40:02
You know, it's like, see, this didn't matter when we were younger, right?

Reggie · 40:05
It didn't matter when we were younger.

Juan · 40:06
No, no, it didn't. We didn't know about that.

Tim · 40:08
So, so what would you say? Do you think that it's better that we're not Or that these—

Juan · 40:12
I mean, I wonder, is it that— would it be better to let go of those? Like, because as a musician, you know, and I would say an environmentalist to some degree, I— when I was younger, I was like, why would I aspire to, like, you know, travel around the country or travel around the world promoting myself and then selling plastic crap to people? Like, what am I actually doing for the world?

Tim · 40:43
You can make your CDs out of the paper, like recycled paper sleeves.

Reggie · 40:47
The sleeves are not recycled.

Juan · 40:49
The CD can't be that. The plastic is still that. My conclusion is just, well, live music.

Tim · 40:54
That's what I'm talking about. Talk about a scarce asset.

Reggie · 40:57
Live music.

Tim · 40:58
To be live, to feel that. You remember going to bands, going to shows when we were younger and they didn't cost $500 and you have to wait on Ticketmaster for hours?

Reggie · 41:06
That was a different era.

Tim · 41:07
in a queue. I don't know what music has done. But doesn't it feel like though going to see live music used to be an intimate thing? I don't know if it's just because I'm from a smaller town. I never went to the— I knew there were big stadium shows happening and that was an era of the '80s and probably into the '90s.

Reggie · 41:23
I went to the Lollapalooza, which was nothing like— it was massive.

Tim · 41:26
Oh, Lollapalooza, but that's a whole different experience.

Reggie · 41:27
Yeah, yeah.

Juan · 41:28
But you mean going to the Grey Eagle or the—

Tim · 41:30
Yeah, going to a show to see someone that's not broken yet. That's like to see music being created and crafted and birthed. Not like— so when you go see a big artist, like let's just talk about Taylor Swift.

Alyssa · 41:43
Yeah.

Tim · 41:44
You're not seeing anything but a very polished preset exterior performance. Like there's nothing about choreography. I know she's— I know she's great. I know a lot of people love her.

Juan · 41:55
I know she's authentic. Unless she's— I mean, a lot of these huge artists, they don't actually perform. They just slip sync. They move around. I think Taylor Swift probably does perform. I think she does. I do too. So there is a degree of authenticity there, but because there's other ones that are less so.

Tim · 42:10
Right.

Juan · 42:11
Like, for instance, I don't know, maybe like someone like Pitbull would be like, probably, you know, has the vocals canned, piped in or something. I don't know.

Tim · 42:21
Did you see Justin Bieber perform at the Grammys?

Juan · 42:23
That was great. I liked that.

Tim · 42:24
How incredible was that?

Alyssa · 42:25
Yeah.

Tim · 42:25
That felt like old music to me when it didn't have to be perfect. People used to get I guess you'd call it canceled. We didn't call it that back then, but remember Milli Vanilli?

Reggie · 42:33
Oh yeah. For lip syncing.

Tim · 42:35
And people lip sync all the time.

Reggie · 42:37
They do it all the time now.

Alyssa · 42:38
People wouldn't even care.

Tim · 42:39
Yeah.

Reggie · 42:40
Like, wasn't it on, was it like Saturday, maybe not Saturday Night Live, but like The Tonight Show or something? Like it was expected that they weren't actually gonna be singing the song.

Alyssa · 42:48
Right.

Reggie · 42:49
'Cause they'd come out and there'd be no like instruments and there'd be somebody out there like—

Tim · 42:53
So, so the thing is that I think we protect ourselves from failure or from weakness. So when you mess up, you have a weakness. You're not, you're not as good a singer as you are in the studio. You're probably not good. So they sing that way. Mariah Carey is classic for this. They sing, they can, they really perfect it in the studio and they try to get it perfect and they do a lot of whatever in the studio.

Reggie · 43:14
Auditions.

Tim · 43:14
But then when they go live, they're like, this is not my best self. I want people to see my best self. And so they lip sync so that, and it's not that they're not singing, they sing it once Yeah, but they're not them. They're not presently singing it now.

Reggie · 43:27
I think with Milli Vanilli, the problem was someone else was singing it.

Tim · 43:31
Right. That was a big issue.

Juan · 43:33
And we weren't used to it then. We weren't used to it then. Like Milli Vanilli, the problem was also we just weren't used to it then. Now we're used to it. Now, you know, after you have Auto-Tune, after Cher did the If You Believe in Life After Love and did the Auto-Tune, and then T-Pain, T-Pain totally performed live like that. And Kanye West, like all of that auto-tune. T-Pain can actually sing really well.

Tim · 43:55
So when you see someone sing, when someone performs and— what's the right word for it? There's something about singing that captures the moment. And that experience is scarce. Because albums, I love albums. I think if you listen to albums that were created when they had to record live, you can somewhat get to that. point when they all recorded around a mic and trying to capture it. Beatles is one of those that you sing it, that's them singing it, and that's very little effects happening. But I think that— I think now in this world where everything's so contained or plastic-wrapped, you know, like everything's so perfect, people are looking for the imperfections.

Reggie · 44:41
Yeah.

Tim · 44:42
And so that's, I think you're right, that live performance is the only place you can really capture what music is, the fullest extent of it.

Juan · 44:52
I think you can do it in recordings because whenever I make recordings, I never think, oh, how am I going to do this live? I'm like, no, no, no. I'm just trying to make an experience, recorded experience.

Tim · 45:02
Like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Juan · 45:04
And then I will, and the burden will be on me on the feature that either I won't play this live, or I'll figure out— I'll just figure it out later.

Tim · 45:14
But isn't this like branding that doesn't work in the real world? Let's make a brand, KFC for instance, that looks amazing, and then we'll just try and figure it out when we move it to the real world. Why doesn't that come first? Why doesn't the real-world experience of it influence its creation?

Juan · 45:31
For me, it's because the real-world experience of recording is like, you know, I've never seen, for instance, like the Smashing Pumpkins live. I don't even know if I'd want to see the Smashing Pumpkins live because I like Siamese Dream so much.

Tim · 45:46
You don't want to hear them ruin it.

Juan · 45:48
I don't want to hear it done almost as good as that. I just want to hear that.

Tim · 45:52
Yeah.

Juan · 45:52
And I just think as a musician, it's like, I don't know, maybe like a painter. You just like, you're trying to get them, you're trying to do the best you can in this one moment. I'm so present in the creation moment that it makes me not— I'm not worried. I'm not going to pull myself out of that creation moment to worry about, oh, if I can't play this on a mandolin, then I can't record it. It's like, no, whatever it takes to make this experience, I'm just going to do it, and then I'll figure it out later.

Tim · 46:18
Then it's perfect.

Juan · 46:19
I would cut it. I would do halfway. I'd be like, I'll find either whether— because I do sometimes perform over tracks. play the thing I recorded, sometimes take the vocal out, do the vocal live, or sometimes sing a harmony to the recorded vocal with mixed results. I don't say— I would say sometimes it works really well, sometimes it doesn't.

Tim · 46:40
So I think this is interesting because this is the first time I've seen deceptive branding from a different perspective where the artist and the creator is doing what you're doing. They're putting their best into the craft, the tools they have, And then they're like, we'll just figure it out when we get it to the world.

Juan · 46:56
I'll put my best in the next part too.

Tim · 47:00
Right.

Juan · 47:00
But I'm not gonna— but sometimes people just worry, like, because they're like, how are you gonna do that live? And I'm like, I have no clue.

Tim · 47:06
But imagine a producer producing an album for you, and they're doing their best in their craft, and then they release you to the world, and it's a totally different experience than what they— like, Counting Crows was classic for this. They had this album that— I know this from personal experience. This is crazy. My manager was friends with the guy who edited the first Counting Crows album, which we all loved. Does anyone have any nostalgia when they hear Mr. Jones? Yes, absolutely.

Juan · 47:30
Yes.

Tim · 47:30
So they recorded this album and it was terrible. The editor got it and he's like, this is horrible. So he took the album and literally cut it into pieces— verses, chorus, bridge— and he had it hanging on his wall. Yeah, because it's all on tape.

Reggie · 47:46
Yeah.

Tim · 47:47
There was no digital devices then. It was all on tape, and this editor had it all around his studio in pieces, and he built the album from these pieces that they had recorded. He built Mr. Jones out of pieces. And so when they went to perform, they had to learn. They weren't that band. They were this other band that recorded, so they had to go and learn how to be this band.

Reggie · 48:11
Play the fabricated version. Right.

Tim · 48:12
And then— and you see how long they lasted? They lasted, I don't know, like 6, 7 years, maybe 10 years, but they kind of were fading out. But when it's not core to who you are, if it's not what you're creating— and this goes back to what we were telling one of our guests last podcast— is that AI can make you sound— it's the tool to make you sound exactly like you think you should sound to fit in, but it doesn't let you be who you are in this moment. So if you're a band that can't write good songs, then it would be a punishment to give you really good songs to play live because you're not that band yet.

Alyssa · 48:46
Mm-hmm.

Tim · 48:47
That is built over time. So if you're a— and so for instance, if the producer does this and then releases the band, imagine now a creative agency that's holding this brand is gonna do everything in their power to make this brand look badass. And I've had— I've done this before. I had a friend say, you have done your clients an injustice because you make them look cooler than they actually are. And so when they come out, people look at them and they're like—

Juan · 49:12
Catfishing.

Tim · 49:13
They're distracted. They're like disoriented. They're like—

Juan · 49:15
Switch and bait.

Tim · 49:15
Yeah, switch and bait. And I've always felt—

Juan · 49:19
Switch and bait. Switch and bait.

Reggie · 49:22
Let's switch this up.

Tim · 49:25
I felt self-conscious about this because I'm trying to do the best I can with all the tools I have, with my skill, with my being. And then I release them into it and I let them take it. So the people that did the KFC rebrand, are doing it the best they can. It's gonna attract all the youngsters and it's gonna be great for them. And then they just give it to them and it's crappy this, it's crappy that, it's horrible wages, it does all these things.

Juan · 49:50
And they just believe— Under the hood, it's actually pretty bad.

Tim · 49:52
Under the hood, it's bad. But this creative team was trying to do their best work, even though it was a lie, essentially.

Reggie · 50:00
One of the things that came to mind when you were talking about painters and music, Joni Mitchell on Miles of Aisles.

Alyssa · 50:08
Yeah.

Reggie · 50:08
On one of the songs she sings. Yeah, that's exactly what I was talking about. It's like nobody, you know, Van Gogh painted Starry Night and he does it and he does it and that's it.

Juan · 50:18
They're not like, do it again.

Alyssa · 50:19
Do it again.

Reggie · 50:19
Yeah, they're like, that's it.

Juan · 50:20
Do Starry Night in front of us right now.

Reggie · 50:21
Yeah, paint a Starry Night again, man.

Juan · 50:22
Yeah, come on, man. Yeah, exactly.

Reggie · 50:24
But it's like, that's the beauty of art is that, and the beauty of live music, because I really think that, for instance, we're, I don't know if I told you this story before, But I went to Mississippi Nights to see Fiona Apple years ago. You know Fiona Apple? Anybody like Fiona Apple? I'm still a huge fan. I love her. She's pretty awesome. We got down to the front row, me and a buddy of mine, Brandon, and we penetrated the crowd, but we got pushed over to the left. And we were standing there and we're like, well, it's still close enough. We'll be able to see her. This is great. Intimate. You're talking about the intimacy of live music. And this is— you only get that kind of intimacy, I think, in small venues or venues that you can actually maneuver your way up to the very front. So I'm up there, Brandon and I standing next to each other, we're looking at the mic. All of a sudden, these guys bring this big box and they drop it down in front of us, and we're like, oh man, our view, this sucks. But at least we'll still be able to hear her. She's gonna be right there. We're standing there, we're waiting around, and then all of a sudden these same guys come back out and they pick up this box, these legs drop down, and they open the top and it's her fucking piano.

Juan · 51:39
Mm-hmm.

Reggie · 51:39
And all of a sudden we are just like beside ourselves because now we're realizing she's going to be serenading us pretty much the whole night because more than half of her songs are done on the piano. And that's exactly what happened. We were at the edge of her piano the whole show, which was absolutely amazing. And the whole thing I was thinking is that this is gonna totally ruin her CD for me because now I can't ever relive this experience. Like, this is it in the moment. This is the thing that I'm getting to enjoy, so savor it. Because when I get back in the car and I pop in the CD, it's gonna have a different vibe, you know? It won't—

Tim · 52:16
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because she was— she's a real performer. She does the craft.

Reggie · 52:22
They Amazing.

Tim · 52:23
They once asked Johnny Cash, why do you sing the way you do? I don't know if y'all have heard this, but he said— you know what he says?

Reggie · 52:29
No, what's the answer?

Tim · 52:30
It's the only way I know how.

Reggie · 52:31
Oh, I like that.

Tim · 52:32
That doesn't exist now, right? Because you can sing however you want, you can produce it however you want. We have the digital tools to make you look, sound, and feel however you want to feel. But what does that mean for the scarce asset that we are? as humans, the unique thing we bring. Music for me has lost a lot of its— the quality of it because it doesn't have its own thing anymore. It's all melded together. There isn't stuff coming out, at least that I've found.

Juan · 53:03
You mean genres?

Tim · 53:04
Genres or styles or unique characteristics of an artist. It's all kind of— this is going to be a crazy thing to say, but I think Justin Bieber's album album, the Swag album, is the first time that I've heard an album that sounds like the anti-song, the anti-album. The production's wrong.

Juan · 53:24
His newest one?

Tim · 53:25
Yeah, you should hear it. It sounds like it's recorded in a room with a tape deck.

Juan · 53:28
That's the one that has the Yukon song on it?

Tim · 53:30
Yeah, the whole thing. Even the songs are not written in the pop— it is evil. You know the song that's like, in the city, they used to ride my Yukon? He sang it at the Grammys.

Alyssa · 53:42
Yeah.

Reggie · 53:43
You haven't heard this?

Alyssa · 53:44
I've heard the song, not the album.

Tim · 53:46
It's so good. But the thing about it is, and I've never liked—

Juan · 53:49
It's a Justin Bieber—

Tim · 53:50
And then I will—

Juan · 53:52
I'm only justified.

Tim · 53:54
But it's— I only have heard it because my daughter, she brought— she's been a Justin Bieber fan before Swag came out and tried to turn me into one. I'm like, no. I mean, his past music, there's no way I'm listening to that. It is so— it is so what pop is, the part of pop I don't like.

Reggie · 54:09
It's like the epitome of pop.

Tim · 54:10
Yeah, it's like self-manufactured, just—

Juan · 54:13
But he's actually talented.

Tim · 54:14
He's so freaking talented.

Reggie · 54:15
He's actually talented.

Tim · 54:16
So on this new album, it's— and I tried to see who produced it, and it's got like 8 producers. It's not just one mastermind trying to make him sound a certain way. And every song is different. There's one song that's called Glory Notes, Voice Notes, and it's from him singing to his iPhone.

Reggie · 54:34
Oh, really?

Tim · 54:35
Yeah.

Reggie · 54:35
And it's like really good?

Tim · 54:36
And it's one of his tracks and it's so good. But all the songs on it, there's not like this typical formula of here's the bridge, here's the chorus, here's the hook. It is literally him.

Juan · 54:46
I don't do that either.

Tim · 54:47
And my son's learning his guitar parts in this, in the— because my son likes it too. This is a weird thing to become a Bieber family. I never thought this would be possible.

Reggie · 54:57
Is that a thing, a Bieber family?

Tim · 54:59
Usually it's just the—

Reggie · 55:00
We're a Bieber family.

Tim · 55:01
Usually it's just Bieber fever, you know, like—

Juan · 55:04
Yeah, Beliebers.

Tim · 55:05
Beliebers, yeah.

Reggie · 55:06
That's what they call them?

Tim · 55:07
Yeah, Beliebers.

Reggie · 55:08
Beliebers? Right.

Tim · 55:10
But now listening to this album, it is so counterculture. And he even performed at the Grammys just himself in his boxers with his laptop.

Juan · 55:18
Or with one guy playing guitar, I think the other time he performed.

Tim · 55:21
No, he was—

Juan · 55:22
okay.

Tim · 55:22
Yeah.

Juan · 55:23
At that little cello? It was like stripped down, very intimate, yeah.

Tim · 55:25
Right. things, and you hear him and you feel him, and the entire place was silent.

Alyssa · 55:30
Wow.

Tim · 55:31
That is the heart of what it is we possess as people. The scarce asset we are is that level of unique magic, and I don't think we realize that. I think we're trying to be something that people want. Use AI to write the best email, use AI to write the best song, use AI to do this and that. And now it's become AI, but we did We did this in Measure before AI came out to try and cover the weirdness that we are, the unique imperfection that we are.

Juan · 56:00
Yeah. I mean, even like a template to say, this is how to write a letter.

Reggie · 56:03
Yeah.

Juan · 56:04
What if you write a letter? I use templates all the time, but like, you know, I mean, just like the conventions, like that's kind of the early conventions of like when, you know, you sit down and your fork is here and you learn all that stuff so that you can be presentable in a certain context, but it's like that stuff all— that was somebody else's idea, and like it was somebody else's preference. It was their informal preferences that became our formal expectations.

Alyssa · 56:32
Yeah.

Tim · 56:32
And we have to live within that box.

Juan · 56:34
Yeah. Until you realize, because you think it's like, oh well, it's something, it's something, but it's like not. Like you look at all the Latin names for plants, it's like, oh, it's the Latin name, that's scientific. But then you translate it and it's like, oh, it just sounds like a folk name for a plant, because that's what it is. It just got codified. But I was going to say, you should listen to my music because I think you'll like it.

Tim · 56:57
I will.

Juan · 56:58
Because when I make songs, I mean, I've done songs, maybe like hundreds of songs where it's like, okay, intro, verse, chorus, or intro, chorus, verse, whatever. And then eventually I was like, what about just beginning, middle, end? Okay. I love a good intro. And then this is the next part. I don't know what to call it if it's a verse or a chorus, but it's another part. And then I get tired of that, I want another part. Okay, this can be more verse-y. And then am I gonna go back? Uh, maybe not.

Tim · 57:26
Maybe—

Juan · 57:26
hey, I'm— this is only a minute and a half, but it does feel like it has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and it resolves.

Alyssa · 57:33
Mm.

Juan · 57:33
Or I had this one collection of songs where I didn't want it to fully resolve. I wanted it to end and you to be like, what? I want it again. I want more. And I made a bunch of music like that. They do that with movies too.

Reggie · 57:46
Right.

Juan · 57:46
So I think you would like it because it's— I basically am just like, I've done the formulaic songwriting. Now in order to make me catch my breath or make me feel some chills, I just do— I just make stuff that makes sense on its own.

Reggie · 58:01
Yeah. We were just talking about this yesterday, Juan, but I remember seeing you at this garden party years ago. It probably was— it was probably 20 years ago.

Juan · 58:10
It was probably 2007.

Reggie · 58:12
Yeah, so 19 years ago, I was at this garden party somewhere in North Asheville.

Juan · 58:18
Montford.

Reggie · 58:18
Montford.

Juan · 58:19
I know where it was.

Reggie · 58:20
Yeah, and I was, uh, Juan's band, Secret B-Sides.

Juan · 58:24
But it wasn't even my band. It was like I had a guitar. I had a guitar, a nylon string electric guitar plugged into a delay pedal. And then I also had a Hohner bass synthesizer. Oh, I mean, it's not that crazy. A Hohner bass synthesizer. So I— and then I— that was— maybe I plugged that into the delay pedal.

Tim · 58:48
Oh my.

Juan · 58:49
And then, and then my friend was playing saxophone, and then I was also maybe singing on top of that.

Reggie · 58:54
It was such a vibe.

Juan · 58:55
And it definitely was a vibe.

Reggie · 58:57
It was outside, it was a cool summer night, and I was I was just like, damn, these guys are awesome.

Tim · 59:03
I want to listen to that. So your band's name is Secret B-Sides?

Juan · 59:05
Yeah, I would go listen to my personal music, Juan Holladay, first because that's like, for me, that's the crowning achievement. Secret B-Sides is more like—

Tim · 59:15
You're like—

Juan · 59:17
It was a practice run.

Alyssa · 59:18
Formation.

Juan · 59:18
Yeah, more of a practice run. And I'm going to do more Secret B-Sides recordings coming up with a new lineup that I have.

Reggie · 59:25
Nice. You're going to do live? Are you going to do any live playing out?

Juan · 59:29
Yeah, for sure.

Reggie · 59:30
I want to get back out to some live music. I want to get my kids to more live music so they can understand that and feel that and have that baked into their nostalgia.

Tim · 59:39
Right. I just— I'm having so much nostalgia just talking about this, all the things you're bringing up. It's just—

Reggie · 59:45
You gotta take us home soon.

Tim · 59:46
Oh, it's been an hour?

Juan · 59:49
Yeah, it's been an hour.

Tim · 59:50
What time you gotta go?

Reggie · 59:51
Now.

Tim · 59:52
Now. Oh my Oh my goodness. All right.

Alyssa · 59:56
I'll—

Reggie · 59:57
We let Alyssa say a whole lot.

Alyssa · 59:58
I was enjoying the—

Reggie · 59:59
You want to close us out? You want to like—

Tim · 1:00:02
Do you have a game?

Reggie · 1:00:03
What's a good what-if pertaining to nostalgia? I just put you on the spot, didn't I?

Alyssa · 1:00:12
Yeah.

Tim · 1:00:13
A little bit. So if out of all that we've brought up, would you ask yourself a question and say, what if we did this instead of this? Or what if that still existed? What would you say?

Alyssa · 1:00:27
I mean, something I think about a lot is like, why does our country place so much emphasis on just selling more and consumerism and bigger food and these chemicals that make it taste better and have different colors when I feel like it would be just as marketable, if not more, to focus on The absence of all those things.

Juan · 1:00:53
Yeah, like building up something.

Alyssa · 1:00:54
So what if we did that? I don't know.

Reggie · 1:00:56
I did— I will share this quick thing and then I'll let Tim bring us home. There was a guy who did a study recently, blind taste tested. He took Lucky Charms from Canada and Lucky Charms from the US. Lucky Charms in the US is just filled with like Red 40 and Blue Lake 5 or whatever, and the— and more sugar. And then the one in Canada is not— doesn't have has less sugar, has— doesn't have all the fake colors and artificial stuff. And he did a blind taste test and he was like, oh my God, this is obviously the American one because it's so sweet, it's so good. And then he tasted the other one, he's like, oh wait, I don't know, because this one now tastes— it's like artificial, it's weird. And it turns out the one that tasted best was the one from Canada. So we don't even need all of the fake artificial stuff.

Alyssa · 1:01:47
I started I started buying the fresh ground peanut butter from Ingles, which is literally just peanuts crushed up. Yeah, I wonder why do they put fucking sugar in peanut butter? I know. Now, whenever I taste the normal peanut butter, it's like so gross. It's so sweet.

Reggie · 1:02:00
It's disgusting. I don't know why people need to put sugar in everything.

Tim · 1:02:03
Overly designed, overthought, all of our stuff, all of our food.

Juan · 1:02:10
But there are more options for eating healthy and eating sugar-free stuff.

Tim · 1:02:14
You got to be pretty wealthy to eat healthy.

Reggie · 1:02:16
There are at least more options.

Juan · 1:02:17
But there are more options.

Alyssa · 1:02:18
That's true.

Juan · 1:02:19
I mean, you don't got to be wealthy, but yeah.

Tim · 1:02:21
Do you think options are what make us happy?

Reggie · 1:02:23
Yeah, I think so.

Tim · 1:02:25
They've done surveys and people with more options— people with more options from a survey are less happy than people with one.

Reggie · 1:02:33
I mean, you think about it, when you go into the cereal aisle, that feeling of overwhelm, I totally get that. But I also don't want to be forced to eat the version that has all the junk in it. So I do like—

Tim · 1:02:45
Like the version that's grown from a field and that's the only option you have? I mean, if that was the real version.

Reggie · 1:02:50
Yeah. If it was just the real version, I think I'd be fine.

Tim · 1:02:52
That's what it used to be.

Reggie · 1:02:53
Yeah.

Tim · 1:02:54
Now we have options. We have stuff boxed.

Reggie · 1:02:56
That's the nostalgia.

Tim · 1:02:57
Frozen, fresh. What if that's all of our nostalgia?

Juan · 1:03:01
I mean, I tend to— like, there's times where I'll be by myself or whatever. I'll go to the grocery store. There's one time where I went to the grocery store and I was like, I was like, there's food from all over the world in this grocery store. In this moment in time where there's going to— this is going to be— this might not last. I was like, this is kind of cool. Like, I'm going to walk down. I know I was at Whole Foods, you know? So I was like, there really was like kind of like a lot of different food from everywhere. Yeah, there is food from like— they do make an effort to have like a whole aisle of stuff from like Asia or whatever.

Reggie · 1:03:35
They'll have even local stuff too.

Juan · 1:03:36
Yeah, local stuff. So I did— I do feel a little bit like I just, I just like, this isn't going to— this wasn't always the case and it might probably not always going to be the case. So I was like, you know what?

Tim · 1:03:47
Just enjoy this moment.

Juan · 1:03:48
I'm just going to enjoy being in this building and I've got enough money. I could probably buy whatever I want today.

Alyssa · 1:03:53
Yeah.

Juan · 1:03:54
And walk out and like, you know, kind of like the, like the mountain lion, like the animal. Like right now, the mountain lion in this grocery store is like feasting. This is sweet. This is good. You know, like, I don't know.

Reggie · 1:04:03
I kind of like it. What if, what if my what if is What if we just enjoy the moment and then that becomes the nostalgia that we come back to?

Tim · 1:04:10
Yeah, it's funny you say that because I was gonna tell a story to close this about what if nostalgia was right now, and you just said it, and then you said it. So I was just starting out our agency that my wife and I started years and years ago, and we're— we'd finally got in this office outside of our house, and it was this little tiny, no window, 12 by 10 box. And we were having our first creative meeting with our creative team, and one of them is on— what was it before Google Meet? It was this, um, just the one with the blue— Skype.

Alyssa · 1:04:46
Skype.

Tim · 1:04:46
They were on Skype from like Texas or something, and I had a designer here and then my wife and me. And right before the meeting, I checked my email, and I get this email from a client that was just I can't remember who it was or what they said, but it was devastating to me and to Megan. She got the same email, and it made me just want to quit. I was like, this is fucking stupid. I don't know why I'm even doing this work. And I had this— and I'm getting ready to have this meeting, this creative brainstorming naming session with this creative team. And I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this is happening right now. Just in a really bad place. And we sit down and have the meeting, and I'm not happy.

Reggie · 1:05:23
Yeah.

Tim · 1:05:23
And Megan looks at me and she goes, all right, let's just take 60 seconds and just have a moment of silence just to kind of center ourselves. And so me coming from a family that has very few pauses and very, very few moments of silence, this was going to be a very— a big challenge for me with this creative team I've just worked with for the first time. And so I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this. And she says, all right, let's just close our eyes and let's just sit here for 60 seconds.

Alyssa · 1:05:50
Wow.

Tim · 1:05:52
I do it and my mind is racing like, how does this feel? This is so awkward. This is weird. And this is before all the big mindfulness movement.

Reggie · 1:05:59
Yeah.

Tim · 1:05:59
So this is a weird thing to be doing. And someone's on Skype and it's just quiet and my mind won't let it go. And all of a sudden something in me says, just fucking try it. And immediately I'm ripped away from the moment and I'm pulled back through time and space all the way further and further back from myself out into the universe and then further into the universe. And it was like I was not only moving in space but time, years and years.

Juan · 1:06:26
You really felt like that?

Tim · 1:06:27
Yes. This is the weirdest experience I've ever had. And I saw my generations live and I saw me die and watch all these generations live. And I went back, had to be 1,000 years. And I looked at it and I breathed in and it all felt finished. And I went, whoo, and I went right back into my body. And I came up, I woke, I opened my eyes and I didn't know how long I'd been out. And I look around, everyone still has their eyes closed. And I look around the room and I'm like, it's like the clock on the wall is making this weird, loud clicking sound and the printer and everything feels old. I'm having this sense of nostalgia stronger than I've ever felt in my life. And I look at Megan, she's so young. I'm like, you were so young. And I said, that's TJ. And I was like, oh, I'm back in this moment. I get to live this moment again. And I had nothing that I had to get accomplished. It was already done. I had already seen it finished. All I had to do was enjoy this time with them. And it was one of the best creative meetings I've ever had in my life.

Reggie · 1:07:31
I love that.

Juan · 1:07:31
I usually don't do drugs right before a big meeting.

Tim · 1:07:35
I will use— it's crazy because my My son says, you're terrible at drugs because you're like already on drugs. But I do this trick sometimes. I'll be sitting with my son playing Legos and I'm just like rehearsing my pitch or I'm like thinking of a project and I'm like, no. And so, I time travel myself back and I'll think about all of it, all of it being— You control it now. Yeah.

Reggie · 1:07:58
You know how to do it now. You have the little Matrix dial.

Alyssa · 1:08:01
Right.

Tim · 1:08:01
And I'll zoom out and I'll breathe in and I'll come back in and I'll be like, there he is. He was only 4 years old.

Alyssa · 1:08:07
Right.

Tim · 1:08:07
This is when he was 4.

Juan · 1:08:08
Yeah.

Tim · 1:08:09
And it's like I'm coming into a picture.

Juan · 1:08:10
I feel like nostalgia, the basis of it really is like these moments where you were able to slow down and you were able to be present. And there's always something going on that's stressful, always something that's pulling you out of that. But if you can in this moment just like come back, find, find the things that truly are blessings even in the midst of stress and chaos and turmoil, that those become the basis of nostalgia.

Tim · 1:08:38
It's that moment of simplicity and peace right there in that moment.

Reggie · 1:08:41
I love that.

Tim · 1:08:42
All right. I thank you for showing up, for listening to this, listening to us just yap, yapping. And I appreciate Juan. Thank you for doing this last minute with us. And Alyssa, it's so great having you both on. Until next time. Bye.

Reggie · 1:08:56
Thanks, guys. All right, let's get this photo real quick.

Juan · 1:09:01
Thanks for listening. This podcast was created and developed by our hosts Reggie Tidwell, Tim Scroggs, and Mary Greene. Special thanks to our guest hosts Juan Holladay and Alyssa Downey. Produced by Mary Greene. Live production and editing by me, Will Canady. Graphic design by Dylan Garcia and set design by Megan Scroggs. Today's episode is presented lovingly by 40 Hearts, creators of enduring value. Keep your wellness routine going strong all summer. Kachava's new travel packs help you stick to your daily ritual even when you're on the go.

Tim · 1:09:42
Just one packet of Kachava's all-in-one nutrition shake provides complete nutrition wherever you are with 25 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber, greens, adaptogens, and more. Simplify your daily ritual.

Juan · 1:09:55
Go to kachava.com and use code FITNESS for 15% off.

Tim · 1:10:00
That's kachava.com, code FITNESS.